This is the first story in a series. Nothing can be copied, used, or reproduced without the permission of the author.
I looked around the room with a sense of relief and satisfaction as I dropped into my favorite chair in the entertainment room of my new home. It had been a long day of telephone interviews and library research, followed by almost five hours of solid writing, but I had worked my way through over sixty-five hundred words of painstakingly detailed new technical text and also made a good start on the "first pass" reread/edit process on a long-term contract proposal for an important new client. Now I could sit down without any guilt and enjoy tonight's ball game and a couple drinks in my new home. The house was almost twenty years old, but it was new to me and that's what counted. I knew myself well enough to know that I'd never want to be in some kind of sterile box with six foot trees and cheap landscaping. I had picked a moderately stylish structure placed within a grove of fully mature oak and hickory trees with good lighting, mature landscaping and several perennial planting beds already established. This should have meant that life was filled with bliss and blue skies all the day long. In fact, the last few weeks had been filled with intermittent problems due to the move, several issues, actually, that were all from one single problem. My best friend, and house partner, was having adjustment issues.
Buddy and I had been together for three years. I had adopted him from the local shelter as a pup, and the little, black, Lab/Shepherd mutt had grown into a fine fellow. living a couple miles out of town in an old farmhouse was the only life that Buddy knew. The place was only a little more than an acre, but all the homes in the area were set into similar or larger parcels of land and the old place seemed spacious by comparison to Buddy. He had been pretty good about staying at home while living at the old place, for the most part, that is, but Buddy did have the run of the neighborhood and there were a couple of widows and older couples who were more than happy to supply all the snack treats and bones he could want. He was used to running his "meat route" daily. Unfortunately, my career success made it necessary for me to move and we had ended up just inside the town limits, in a very nice place on roughly a quarter of the land Buddy was used to having as his personal buffer zone to the world at large. I was making the adjustment nicely, waving and smiling at all the new neighbors, even though sometimes things did seem awfully close quartered, and generally getting along nicely enough with everyone in the area. Having less grass to cut and landscaping to keep up with was also a blessing, what with my new schedule and a larger set of deadlines. I was happy here. Buddy was having some issues.
Buddy just couldn't get it through his head that some people didn't want to see his bright eyes and smiling face at their door looking for handouts. I kept him inside or on a wire run in the backyard most of the time, but let him run free when I was outside to supervise. I was trying to teach him manners and to stay at home and respect property limits. Most of the neighbors were fine with Buddy and just sent him on his way when he would stray too far, he even got along with the other dogs in the neighborhood, but my next door neighbors on one side were not happy.
Buddy had made the mistake of chasing a squirrel past the property line and following it right on into their yard. And that's when he came face to face with the mistress of the manor next door for the very first time.
Buddy bounded around the corner of the house, just behind the squirrel, which was clawing its way right up and over her back to launch itself from off of her shoulder on its way to the squirrel feeder and the safety of the trees beyond that, just as she was filling the feeder with shelled corn and peanuts. She screamed and spun around to face her intruder, corn spilling everywhere, and Buddy, startled by unexpectedly finding himself confronted with a complete stranger, didn't make things any better by letting out a loud bay of his own in return. Miriam stumbled backwards in shock and awe, hooked her heel on the border stones by the patio, and sat down abruptly on concrete. Her tailbone was throbbing painfully and her dignity was in tatters. The last thing she needed was wet kisses from a strange one hundred pound dog who thought she had sat down specifically to introduce herself and pet him!
I made apologies for Buddy, called him off, and helped her up. Miriam was cordial and understanding, but it's just not how you're supposed to meet the neighbors. In the next week, things didn't get any better. Buddy violated jurisdictional boundaries several times in what he unilaterally considered hot pursuit, broke the lead to the wire once, leaving him free for several minutes, and Miriam went to bat for her favorite local wildlife with all the fervor of an anti-war activist. Her doughy husband, (I still don't know his first name, Jerry, I think!), made the mistake of threatening both of us while standing up for his wife. By the time that exchange was over, (public sidewalks must have been invented by cowards), I had made it plain that as far as I was concerned we could all live in peace, with the squirrels mostly taking care of themselves, or someone could get hurt real bad, but "my" dog wasn't going anywhere!
A week or so went by, and then one day Buddy started moping about and acting listless. It wasn't the heat, (too early in summer for that), but he had a bad case of diarrhea, quit eating, and didn't act like he was feeling well. The vet said he looked anemic by the color of his gums, and sold me some vitamin and mineral supplements. We wrote it off to the change in location and activity level.
Three days later I walked out the back door to bring Buddy inside, just at dusk, and noticed he was chewing on something in his mouth that he greedily swallowed before I could see what it was. Then I heard door closing sounds over at Miriam's place, but nobody came outside. I went back in for a flashlight and looked around on the ground where Buddy had been eating. I didn't find much more than a couple of broken pieces, but it looked like the fish flavored bait pellets I had bought to kill mice out in the garden shed at the old place.
I went back inside and stuck my fingers down Buddy's throat until he brought up some cooked hamburger and more pellets! I took them over to the vet and he confirmed my identification, cautioned me about letting buddy get into stuff like that, (I omitted the part about the hamburger), told me how lucky I was, and sent me home to worry while Buddy spent the night with the vet.
